


In Sanity

by Anonymous



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Angststuck, Headcanon, Insanity, Other, Pesterlog, Swearing, This Is STUPID, Vaguely Defined Relationships, Weirdness, sober!Gamzee, sopor!Gamzee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts from Catchalogue, although some weren't actually posted over there between language and not-exactly-fitting-prompt. Mostly pesterlog fic between Karkat and Gamzee. So much swearing.</p><p>Madness? No. This is sanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spread Insanity

**Author's Note:**

> Spread Insanity: It might be considered unwise to corner a scared animal. Sometimes they surprise you.
> 
> My interpretation of the Knight of Blood will probably be jossed very shortly.

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

TC: HONK  
TC: honk  
CG: ...  
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT, FUC|< THIS  
CG: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP  
TC: I THOUGHT I MOTHERFUCKING TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP  
TC: so shut the fuck up  
CG: YES, YOU DID INDEED TELL ME THAT  
CG: ONE OF OUR MANY, MANY INTERMINABLE CONVERSATIONS AGO  
CG: BUT HERE'S SOME MORE TRUTH FOR YOU TO RAM INTO YOUR RUSTED THIN|<PAN  
CG: YOU CAN ONLY TERRIFY SOMEONE FOR SO LONG BEFORE IT STOPS FUC|<ING WOR|<ING  
CG: BETWEEN YOU, ERIDAN, VRIS|<A, JAC|< NOIR, DEATH, DOOM, DESTRUCTION, THE RIFT, SOLLUX, AND MY OWN CURRENT LAC|< OF SANITY, I AM TERRIFIED OUT  
CG: MY FEAR THIN|< NODULE IS BLOWN, MY PARANOIA IS TOO BUSY WATCHING ITSELF, AND MY RAGE HAS FINALLY MADE A BREA|<THROUGH  
TC: WE'LL MOTHERFUCKING SEE ABOUT THAT  
TC: we'll see when i motherfucking find you  
CG: SEE? AGAIN. VAGUE THREATS  
CG: NOTHING BUT PROMISES  
CG: IF YOU |<NOW WHERE I AM, COME FIND ME  
TC: ...WHAT THE MOTHERFUCK IS UP  
TC: your typing is all up in the weird  
CG: SAYS THE GUY WHO'S CHANGED HIS QUIR|<  
CG: ANYWAY. AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE SOME IDIOT INTERRUPTED ME  
CG: EITHER QUIT PLAYING STUPID GAMES OR COME FIND ME  
TC: ...  
TC: ...  
TC: WHAT THE MOTHERFUCK ARE THOSE K'S ABOUT  
TC: or |<  
CG: IT'S AN ANGRY FACE  
CG: WHEN I SAID MY RAGE HAD MADE A BREA|<THROUGH, I LIED  
CG: KARKAT'S NO LONGER IN THE BUILDING  
CG: HE SNAPPED  
CG: I MADE A BREA|<THROUGH  
CG: YOU CAN BE THE BARD OF RAGE ALL YOU FUC|<ING LI|<E  
CG: I'M THE |<NIGHT OF BLOOD  
CG: I CAN SMELL YOU A MILE AWAY, ALL BLUEY-PURPLE  
CG: DON'T WORRY ABOUT BEING LONELY  
CG: I'LL BE THERE JUST AS SOON AS I CAN  
CG: MA|<ING A COUPLE OF STOPS FIRST, THOUGH  
CG: YOU ALL THOUGHT HE FAINTED AT THE SIGHT OF BLOOD  
CG: BUT IT WASN'T THE BLOOD THAT SCARED HIM, IT WAS ME RISING TO THE SURFACE  
CG: I LI|<E BLOOD  
CG: IT MAKES ME STRONGER  
CG: IT IS MY WEAPON AND MY SHIELD  
CG: BY THE TIME I FIND YOU, I'LL BE PROPERLY ARMED  
CG: THIS YELLOW STUFF'S O|<AY, BUT THERE'S NOT REALLY ENOUGH BLOOD IN ONE TROLL FOR ME TO FEEL COMFORTABLY EQUIPPED  
CG: BLUE GOES QUITE NICELY WITH YELLOW THOUGH, THOUGH  
CG: LOTS OF THAT AROUND  
CG: SPEA|<ING OF WHICH, BETTER GET ON WITH IT  
CG: SEE YOU REAL SOON

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling terminallyCapricious [TC]

TC: WELL, FUCK  
TC: yeah, that


	2. We Got This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...The challenge? To take a random prompt generator and type the first thing that came up.
> 
> Gamzee Makara/Feferis Peixes, FUCKING? Can do, good sir. Although not sure how well it fits, Gamzee and fucking are pretty easy to type for but getting Feferi in there was a bit awkward.

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

TC: HOW'S IT MOTHERFUCKING GOIN  
TC: over there with all those motherfucking dead people?  
CG: OH GOD NO NO NO NO  
TC: CHILL, BROTHER  
TC: just motherfucking chill  
TC: I'M NOT GOING TO KILL YOU JUST FUCKING YET  
TC: i know where you'll motherfucking be anyway  
CG: GAMZEE PLEASE  
TC: WE JUST WANTED TO SAY  
TC: it's fucking fine, i've got eridan  
TC: DON'T FUCKING STRESS ABOUT IT :o)  
TC: i had fucking plans for her  
TC: AND NOW THE MOTHERFUCKER'S MOTHERFUCKING RUINED THEM  
CG: GAMZEE  
CG: JUST  
CG: PLEASE  
TC: i already fucking told you  
TC: I AM FUCKING CHILLED, BROTHER  
TC: honk  
TC: HONK  
TC: but anyway, i was fucking saying  
TC: LEAVE THE MOTHERFUCKER ALIVE  
TC: and don't fucking worry about it  
TC: I WAS MOTHERFUCKING HOPING FOR A LIGHTER SHADE  
TC: a shade fucking closer to pink  
TC: BUT I CAN PROBABLY MAKE A MOTHERFUCKING SUBSTITUTE  
TC: i'd have killed her fast  
TC: BEING A MOTHERFUCKING OBSTACLE TO OUR MOTHERFUCKING PLANS  
TC: a huge fucking obstacle  
TC: BUT I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO MOTHERFUCKING QUICK WITH HIM  
TC: so for motherfucking spoiling my colours  
TC: I AM MOTHERFUCKING ALL OVER THIS  
TC: all over this like white paint on a clown :o)  
TC: HONK  
TC: honk  
TC: SEE YOU SOON, BROTHER  
TC: real fucking soon

terminallyCapricious [TC] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

CG: GAMZEE!


	3. Sink or Swim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamzee does not belong in the ocean, he knows, but the sound has always comforted him. Why should it be any different in the waves are only in his mind, and his mind is no longer his own?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was just, simply, Gamzee. And I like the idea he's still in there somewhere. If you really, really squint, there's... some kind of awkwardly twisted Gamzee and Karkat SOMETHING in there, but it defies my categorising ability.
> 
> Anon-author needs moar practise at writing. Just in case you couldn't tell.

===> StRuGgLe Y/n?

ThErE's SoMeOnE iN mY MoThErFuCkInG hEaD aNd It IsN't Me, he nearly types, but Karkat seems a little impatient and he can't type the words, can't warn Karkat about what he hopes and fears, can't say what he fears to be no longer seems so fearsome and that in itself is a fear. He can feel the fuzzy safe feeling fading, feel someone else watching from behind hIs eyes, hear a dissonant honking in the back of his mind. He needs help, knows he's slipping, everything falling away into the darkness visible outside the asteroid. He knows what he has to do, knows equally well what he doesn't want to do and if the two are the same thing it doesn't matter because his ScReAmS hAvE aLrEaDy BeEn SiLeNcEd AND NOW HE'S WHAT HE SHOULD BE and always should have been.

===> SUBMERGE

Before he knows it, he's almost gone, a last slipping spark of... not sanity, never sanity, sanity is what he has now screaming through his head THROUGH HIS MIND he knows what motherfucking sanity really is, CAN SEE THAT MORE MOTHERFUCKING CLEARLY THAN BEFORE. CAN SEE IT IN THE MOTHERFUCKING STARS, BROTHER.

He's going to kill them all oh god oh man oh god you got that one right, brother. Going to choke the life out of them all, all the ones left anyway now those two have STOLEN HIS MOTHERFUCKING RIGHTFUL KILLS and those two THOSE TWO will be the first colours on his picture.

The last glimmer of a consience screams for those who have died will die will fear and he can't stop them he can see that CRABBY MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD on screen can read the scared thoughts SERVES HIM MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT for ignoring an outstretched hand dismissing him all of them just leaving him to chill alone, alone with a sane mind chewing its way to freedom through his heart and did any of them motherfucking notice? NO THEY MOTHERFUCKING DID NOT AND NOW LOOK AT YOU CRY DON'T WORRY BROTHER WE KNOW WHERE YOU'LL BE. Can't fight the sanity the knowledge that he was always going to be what HE WAS BORN TO BE even for a brother IT WON'T STOP.

And the spark slips under the sound of waves and the sea he has always loved but could never live under and there's only ONE PERSON in this motherfucking mind NOW AND THAT PERSON IS ME and also me.

===> SuRfAcE bRiEfLy

This sea can't drown him though, can't extinguish that last spark of what he's been for so long, it can only try to keep him under the surface where it's peaceful and quiet and he can't see hear feel anything at all.

When he does manage to escape, briefly, it's always to sights he doesn't want to see. Vriska's wing tearing like paper off her back, a seven pupilled eye staring with hatred until IT ENRAGES HIM ENOUGH to stop laughing, a broken fang a broken eye broken skin. Eridan crying, no mercy here NO MERCY AT ALL. Terezi asks him if he's OK4Y, and he surfaces long enough to leave a single watery blue droplet in a sea of blue-green blood, mercifully forgets everything else. Equius kneels, for a second, but Nepeta will not and attacks all claws and spitting fury and dies and Equius rages against HIM and him and dies just as fast. Sollux doesn't even see it coming, broken already by violet blood across his hands.

It's almost a relief when the waves reclaim him each time, can't see his hands dyed bluepurpletealgreenblueyellow anymore.

===> SwIm

AND HE TOLD YOU HE'D KNOW, you CRABBY MOTHERFUCKER and here we are, HERE WE ARE INDEED. No tears now, no panic, just exhausted fear and resignation AND WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, HUH? Where was that hand when he MOTHERFUCKING NEEDED IT?

He CaN hEaR sOmEoNe TaLkInG and he wishes they'd stop shut up hE's not here anymore only HE IS and he is and the words hurt, BrOtHeR, sToP aPoLoGiSiNg stop please stop stop stop mOtHeErFuCkInG sToP KaRkAt I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP BROTHER so now I have to make sure you do.

And the knowledge that he will do this, will add bright red to the colours he's already collected across his skin bears him up, lets him surface again and i WoN't Do ThIs YoU wOn'T dO tHiS nO mOrE

===> SiNk

And the spark he was becomes a blaze becomes a wall of fire and for now he's in control and KaRkAt BrO yOu gOtTa Do ThIs I cAn'T kEeP tHe SaNiTy BaCk No TiMe LeFt iT's Me Or YoU nOw aNd I cAn'T lEt It Be YoU.

Karkat hesitates, but iT's OkAy BrOtHeR and he shuts his eyes and waits for the pain to strike and it does and iT mOtHeRfUcKiNg HuRtS but then there's a pair of arms supporting him, a voice speaking and somehow it hurts less, not to be alone now. He thought he said to sToP sAyInG sOrRy but it's okay, the world shrinks to the sound of waves and a pair of arms and indigo blood and red tears mixing on grey skin and this is MoThErFuCkInG fInE bY hIm as the tide recedes into darkness.


	4. Even After Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's easier to say some things when you don't think the other person can hear you.
> 
> Sometimes, they can.

HEY IDIOT, I KNOW YOU CAN'T HEAR ME

i hEaR YoU JuSt fInE BeSt fRiEnD  
GuEsS YoU CaN't hEaR Me tHoUgH

YOU COULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING

lIkE WhAt bRo?  
"ThErE's a cRazY MoThErFuCkEr aLl uP In mY ThInKpAn  
aNd hE WaNtS YoU AlL DeAd aNd sHiT?"

ALL THIS FUCKING TIME  
I'VE BEEN GIVING OUT ADVICE  
LIKE SWEETS TO FUCKING WRIGGLERS ON PERIGEE'S EVE  
AND I COULDN'T EVEN SEE SHIT UNDER MY OWN NOSE

oH  
...YeAh  
mOtHeRfUcKiN ThAt

THANKS FOR NOTHING SHITSTAIN  
MAKING ME LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT  
WHAT MORON PUTS ME IN THEIR GOGDAMN PALE QUADRANT ANYWAY?  
YOU'D HAVE TO HAVE A THINKPAN MORE FULL OF HOLES THAN A RUSTY SIEVE

It'S FiNe bRo  
dOn'T Be aLl bEaTiNg yOuRsElF Up oVeR It  
DoEsN't fUcKiN MaTtEr aNyMoRe

SO  
I GUESS  
I OWE YOU SOMETHING  
AND THIS  
IS THE ONLY THING  
I CAN THINK OF

...yEaH

I'M SORRY I COULDN'T STOP IT BEFORE IT CAME TO THIS

I'm sOrRy i cOuLdN't sToP It bEfOrE YoU HaD To dO ThIs

AND GAMZEE  
IF YOU CAN HEAR ME

YOU WOULDN'T NECESSARILY HAVE BEEN TOLD NO  
FUCKWIT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, if anyone remembers seeing this, totally giving the game away here.
> 
> Not like it matters, I guess.
> 
> Anyway. Karkat Gamzee angst. The best kind of angst, I guess.


	5. Sometimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actually written prior to EoA 5 and never posted. Oops. Consider it an AU where the Green Sun plan failed to work as expected. Pity-fluff/angst, of one kind or another.

Some days, if you close your eyes and mouth and thoughts all up tight enough, you can do it, just jump into your recuperacoon and sleep, mostly dream-free.

More days than those few, you sit in the corner, cold and sore (and afraid, afraid of so many things) and you look everywhere but there. Your recuperacoon, full of your worst friend and beloved enemy. Sopor slime rusts your thinkpan, everyone knows that, but maybe your thinkpan needs rusting again. Maybe if you just let the thoughts drip away, like they used to, things can feel normal again.

Karkat wouldn't like that, though. He's made it pretty clear he didn't go and get himself into a moirallegiance with you just for you to go and get yourself all up and drugged again. He's made it pretty clear that he expects you to cope with the guilt and the fear and the pain and the knowledge. Half of your thoughts (the lesser half, the half you ignore as best you can) scream and whisper that you should resent him for this, half of your thoughts think it's only fair. You did what you did, and you're not going to be the only person who gets to escape living with the aftereffects. You're not the only one with guilt and fear, after all.

Sometimes, the lights flicker back on, and you're still all huddled in the corner, your thoughts warring with each other, tired eyes disguised still with paint, as the rest of the asteroid wakes up. (Clear thoughts let you realise you need something to believe in, and the tenets of the Mirthful Messiahs are as good as any- the real Messiahs, not the blasphemy in your head, not the blasphemy posted by a human kid thinking about being funny. So you paint your face and allow yourself to believe in happiness, even if you know it is a lie.) Sometimes, before the lights can interrupt your circular thinking, you get up and walk through the twisting corridors of the asteroid.

Karkat is always in the lab. Usually he's there typing away, making plans and schemes and memos. They are useless, you all know that, but Karkat won't quit trying as long as he is alive and has a team left to lead. Very rarely, he is asleep, screen filled with gibberish from when his head hit the keyboard. Either way, you know you can sit down (on a chair with your head on his shoulder, on the floor with your head on his knee, it doesn't really matter to you) and although he will not appear to notice you, before long one hand will lift away from the keyboard and rest on your head or your shoulder or your arm. Even those few times he is asleep, and you slump carefully against him trying not to wake him up so he can rest for just those few moments uninterrupted, his hand still finds you. Those times you sit and wait, watching over him until he wakes up and is unguarded for that brief moment before he scowls at you and calls you a few choice names. You don't mind, though. He doesn't wake up and scrabble away from you any more, and the names prove he does not fear you.

And even if you are doomed to stay on this asteroid until the universe winds down, you can stand it. You can stand the voices, the pain, the memories of what you did. You can stand the entirely platonic hatred of the other trolls, the distrust, the multi-coloured stains smeared across walls and, in memories, your hands. After all, Karkat pities you (even if it is conciliatorily, even if it is because you are dangerous) all the time, and now?

Now you have learnt that some times, bad as they are, are worth living through just for that.


	6. It's a Mad World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the song "Mad World", originally by Tears for Fears and since covered by a lot of people. Because it made sense for a whole 5 seconds.
> 
> Set in a post-comic world where all the trolls are human, no-one remembers the game, and partly based on the headcanon that the dreams trolls get from not sleeping in sopor slime are sometimes related to ancestors.

Most days are the same. You wake up, go to school, come home; through all of it, you're surrounded by blank faces. Some of them look familiar, sometimes. Most of them just look sad, or bored, or empty. You keep your hat pulled low and your sunglasses on, even though you feel like a raging douche and it's not really your thing, it's someone else's. You just wish you could remember whose shtick it is.

Once you're home, you spend as much time as you can, desperately holding out against sleep. Sometimes you go on the computer, type furiously at the movie reviews forum you frequent, bait any Nicholas Cage fans you can find. Yo don't know why it has to be Nicholas Cage, but something about him just makes you feel uneasy. If it's not that, you download yet another terrible romance movie, or find a new game to play, or half-heartedly program, or go on the other forum for hackers and whine until someone fixes your scripts even though none of them ever fix them properly like you know someone should be able to. None of them can blow up your computer, for a start, even though logically you know that's impossible and no-one could ever do that.

When you sleep, you dream. You dream of vaguely perceived presences, with far too many tentacles. You dream of people you can't remember dying, over and over, in so many ways you didn't even know you knew about. You dream of being chased by something angry and deadly and not quite sane, something purple and familiar and strange to you all at the same time. You dream of fear and terror and having to stay hidden, lest you be seen and killed for being something unusual.

You dream of hot sands under your feet and hot steel around your wrists and hot blood ebbing out from your side, and the cold, cruel presence of someone enjoying your death and weeping strangers you should know and don't. It's the best dream you have; at least it's consistent every time you have it, unlike the others.

And it's better than waking and going to school with blank-faced strangers, the teacher looking through you like you don't exist. It's better than waiting for the day when your dreams make sense, when you feel normal and like everyone else.

Once, you explain it to someone; you're not mad, you insist. It's the world. The world is wrong and insane. That gets you time with the school counsellor, but not much else changes; everyone already knew you were weird, already knew to avoid you, knew you didn't belong.

And then, one day, you meet someone who knows how you feel. He stares at you, and even though his eyes are half closed and he looks almost as blank as everyone else, there's something under the surface that reaches out to you like nothing else ever has. He tells you you look familiar, even though you've never met, and you know exactly what he means because you can feel it too, and even though it's not really like your movies it still has to be a kind of fate. You get angry at him, sometimes, and he smiles and nods and spouts nonsense and it feels right.

Eventually, you recognise him as one of the people dying in your dreams, and mention it to him, and he grins and tells you dreams don't mean nothing unless they do and he isn't dead yet, so there's no point worrying about it, and you ask him if he's heard the shit he's spouting, and it gets lost in there somewhere.

And life goes on, and the dreams in which you're dying are still the best dreams you have, but at least the world isn't as mad as it was, and you can live with that.


End file.
